A COUPLE have come under fire from This Morning viewers today after defending their decision to clone their late dog Dylan while so many homeless pooches are left to starve on the streets.

Rather than adopting a rescue dog, Laura Jacques and Richard Remede flew a total of 33,000 miles and spent in excess of £70,000 to clone their pooch in order to produce not just one - but two - genetically identical puppies, Chance and Shadow.

They waited six months to meet the latest additions to their expanding brood, jetting halfway across the world to "bond" with the pups once a month.

"We weren't planning on getting a another dog, but now we do have these extra dogs, but we haven't taken up the space of any rescue dogs," Laura told hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, while defending their unconventional collection of pets.

She continued: "I've never been able to adopt a rescue dog, for various reasons I've just not been allowed to adopt."